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Some will opt for the penalty because it’s cheaper than paying for insurance, even with subsidies — as long as they don’t get sick and have to pay their own medical bills.

And some are so confused about the president’s health care law that they may not even realize they have to pay a penalty — or a tax, as the Supreme Court called it — until they get slapped with the fine when they file their 2014 tax returns. And sign-up rates may be affected, too, if the technical problems on the exchange websites persist.

The penalty starts as low as $95 for the first year but then rises. By 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office, about 6 million Americans will be forking out about $7 billion worth of Obamacare penalties.

The new health exchanges need younger and healthier people to balance out the risk and prevent spiraling insurance costs. The mandate is one way of nudging them in.

Here’s a look at who may opt out — and why they’ll do it.

The Card-Burners

In reality, there are no “Obamacare cards,” but some conservative groups, notably FreedomWorks, are using the imagery to promote resistance to the law, especially among younger and healthier people.

“My guess is they need about 40 percent of the people in the exchanges to be young, healthy adults under 35,” Dean Clancy, vice president of public policy for FreedomWorks, said in an interview. “If they don’t get that, the premiums will go up in the second year. Insurance companies may back out because they can’t get enough people to sign up, … and the whole thing will collapse.”

FreedomWorks, which is tea party-affiliated, plans to take its campaign to college campuses, where they want students to burn fake Obamacare insurance cards.

Generation Opportunity, another conservative group geared toward young adults, is also planning a campus tour. Evan Feinberg, president of so-called GenOpp, envisions the Obamacare feud playing out at football tailgates. Obamacare advocates will show up with — as he put it — stacks of paperwork asking people to sign up for health insurance, subsidize older people and “give up their privacy.” He added, “We’ll be there with pizza and beer and cornhole, saying come hang out with us instead.”

The group recently released a provocative anti-Obamacare ad that went viral, featuring an evil clown-like Uncle Sam figure who pops up between the legs of a young woman to perform a gynecological exam.

The conservatives are trying to reach people like Eugene Craig, a 23-year-old history major at Bowie State University in Maryland. And he’s convinced. He works part time, earns $18,000 and is on his parents’ insurance. He expects mom and dad to boot him off their coverage in a year or so. Although if they get insured through a job, Obamacare allows him to stay on their policy until he turns 26.

Craig said if he finds himself without health insurance, he’ll pay the penalty — even though his income levels would qualify him for subsidized health insurance on the exchange. In 2014, he’d be fined only $95 for being uncovered. But in a few years, depending on what happens to his income and insurance costs, the tax might actually be more expensive than insurance.

“I don’t think the government has a proper role in providing health care,” he told POLITICO. “I’d definitely rather be uninsured and out-of-pocket than be on the exchanges.”

But it’s not clear how many people, like Craig, will stay out on ideological grounds. David Williams, chief tax officer at Intuit, is skeptical there will be many.

“Let me warn you, having done a lot of work on statistics: People will tell you one thing, … but their behavior may or may not match what they say,” he said. “And so, I’d be leery of folks who make grandiose statements for or against Obamacare until we see what they actually do.”

The Calculators

Most people who sit out Obamacare will be motivated by math, not politics. These people — mostly the so-called young invincibles — would rather take their chances that they won’t need costly health care, pay the 95 bucks and not spend money on insurance.

Even FreedomWorks’s Clancy agrees that it will usually come down to economics — although if the end result is weakening Obamacare, that’s fine with him.

“The main reason the people will skip the exchange is not ideological but financial,” he said. “This sticker shock will be our best friend in the fight,” he said, referring to the cost of insurance in the exchanges.

Pro- and anti-Obamacare forces agree that much of people’s decisions on whether to sign up will boil down to dollars and cents. The average premiums for the federally run health insurance exchanges came in lower than earlier projections, but averages don’t necessarily mean all that much. Individuals won’t know until they check out the exchanges — and access the troubled websites — exactly what their particular coverage options are and what those would cost.

Clancy and other opponents of the law point to a study by David Hogberg of the conservative National Center for Public Policy Research that says 3.7 million single people age 18 to 34 will save $500 if they forgo insurance and pay the tax in 2014 — and most of them would actually save twice that much.

Other studies have come to different conclusions. A recent study by the Center for Studying Health System Change disputed the stereotype of so-called young invincibles not caring whether they are insured. It found that just 22 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds believe they’re healthy enough to go without insurance. But it also found that 37 percent of the uninsured think health insurance isn’t worth the money. And a recent Gallup poll showed rising awareness of the health law and more interest in coverage. Of the uninsured, 65 percent said they would get health insurance, and 25 percent said they’d pay the fine.